BUENOS AIRES—Argentina’s federal government has refinanced the debts it is owed by 18 provinces, as governors struggle to plug budget deficits aggravated by double-digit inflation.

The federal government reprogrammed 75 billion pesos ($11.5 billion) in principal and interest payments due in 2014 for a net savings to the provinces of around 11 billion pesos, President Cristina Kirchner’s cabinet chief, Jorge Capitanich, said in a televised address on Friday.

In exchange for debt relief, the provinces must meet targets such as reducing infant mortality, fighting unregistered employment, and reporting tax-collection and spending data to the federal government. Compliance with the financing program will be reviewed each quarter, Mr. Capitanich said.

Many provinces already depend on federal money to fund public-works projects and pay salaries. Governors have been struggling to balance their books as public employees push for big wage increases to compensate for annual inflation that most private-sector forecasters say is above 25%.

Wage tensions boiled over earlier this month when a wave of looting hit more than a dozen provinces after provincial police officers and their families staged sit-ins and partial strikes to pressure governors for higher salaries.

Local authorities were caught off guard when mobs descended on shops, supermarkets and private homes in the absence of police.

Governors yielded to the salary demands to get the police back on the streets. In Chaco province, where Mr. Capitanich was governor until Mrs. Kirchner tapped him last month to lead her cabinet, the minimum police salary was doubled to 8,000 pesos a month under his successor.

Teachers, doctors and other provincial-government employees are expected to make similar wage demands.

The provinces have about 1.7 million employees on their payrolls, and spend about 250 billion pesos a year on salaries, according to economic consultancy Ecolatina.

Demands for big salary increases “are a constant every year and the [police] conflict laid bare the lag” in wage gains compared with inflation, Ecolatina said in a report.

The federal and provincial governments may have to trim spending on public works and utility subsidies given that wages, pensions and social programs are harder to cut, Ecolatina economists said.

Many economists blame high inflation on the central bank’s policy of printing money to finance government spending. While monetary expansion slowed somewhat in 2013, it is still clipping along at a rapid pace. One closely followed measure of the money supply was up 27% on the year in the 12 months ended Nov. 30, versus 38% growth last year, according to central bank data.

The government plans to further slow growth in the money supply in 2014, the new head of the central bank, Juan Carlos Fábrega, said in a radio interview this week. However, the Kirchner administration will face difficult choices on where to cut spending if the central bank cools the printing presses.

Last week, Corrientes Gov. Ricardo Colombi said provincial finances are so dire that his province is preparing contingency plans to issue scrip—a provincial IOU—to pay its bills. Several cash-strapped provinces issued similar scrip to pay wages and suppliers during a deep economic crisis in 2001 and 2002.

Federal and provincial finances are much more solid than during the crisis 12 years ago, Economy Minister Axel Kiciloff said at a news conference on Friday.

“We’re so far from that situation that it’s not even worth commenting on,” Mr. Kiciloff said when asked if other provinces were considering issuing such scrip.

Corn fell to the lowest level in more than a week on speculation that rain in parts of Argentina would aid crops hampered by hot and dry conditions.

The contract for March delivery lost as much as 0.5 percent to $4.2525 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, the lowest level since Dec. 19, and was at $4.2575 by 2:21 p.m. in Singapore. Prices dropped 1.3 percent last week.

Hot temperatures will soon give way to two to three days of rain and cooler weather, breaking the “flash drought” in Argentina, QT Weather said in a report yesterday. Corn slumped 39 percent this year, set for the biggest annual loss on record, as global production will climb to an all-time high, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Argentina is set to be the world’s third-biggest corn exporter in 2013-2014 with Ukraine, the USDA estimates.

“The Argentina situation has been of more concern of late,” said Paul Deane, an analyst at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Melbourne. “If the weather outlook is a bit better” then that may pressure prices, he said.

World output may reach 964.3 million metric tons in 2013-2014 as U.S. farmers harvest a record crop, USDA data show. The country is set to be the biggest exporter in 2013-2014, according to the USDA.

Soybeans for March delivery were little changed at $13.125 a bushel, set to retreat 6.9 percent this year. Wheat declined 0.3 percent to $6.07 a bushel, down 22 percent this year.

Dec 27 (Reuters) – Argentina’s economic activity grew 3.2 percent in October compared with the same month last year, the government said on Friday, a result that came in a bit below market expectations.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a 3.5 percent rise in the monthly EMAE economic activity index, which is a close proxy for gross domestic product.

The INDEC statistics office also said in a statement that October economic activity was 0.3 percent lower versus September.

Argentina’s growth slipped in the third quarter from the previous quarter, the government reported a week earlier along with other indicators suggesting that Latin America’s third-largest economy may be slowing.

Gross domestic product in the key grains exporter expanded by 5.5 percent in the third quarter versus the same 2012 period but shrank 0.2 percent compared with the second quarter of this year, the INDEC said on Dec. 20.

4. ARGENTINA TRIES TO GIVE MALBEC MORE STATUS (The New York Times)

By Florence Fabricant

December 27, 2013

In Argentina, where the malbec grape is king, winemakers have put a different and intriguing spin on what is usually known as a Bordeaux blend. Instead of the typical mix of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and merlot, they are relying primarily on cabernet and malbec.

Malbec because it dominates the vineyards of Mendoza, the country’s largest wine region. And cabernet because making a top-of-the-line malbec blend seems to beg for its cachet, especially if you have French partners.

“Cabernet sauvignon has always been considered classier than malbec,” said Alejandro Vigil, the head winemaker at Bodegas Catena Zapata, a top Argentine producer based in a stunning Aztec-style winery in Mendoza with the high Andes in the background. “It’s more noble, has more prestige and is more expensive.”

He said Nicholas Catena, who founded the winery decades ago, dreamed of making a world-class cabernet starting in the 1980s. For many winemakers like him, cabernet sauvignon is the holy grail. Caro, a malbec-cabernet blend made in a collaboration between Bodegas Catena Zapata and Baron Eric de Rothschild of Château Lafite Rothschild, is one example of an Argentine Bordeaux-style wine. Another is Cheval des Andes, the fruit of the union of Terrazas de los Andes, another major name in Argentina, with Château Cheval Blanc, a premier grand cru wine from Saint-Émilion.

These Argentine Bordeaux blends deliver the tannins, dark fruit and structure typical of fine cabernet sauvignon, along with malbec’s intensity, velvet texture and reliability. Cheval des Andes and Caro offer balance and finesse. (Bodegas Caro also offers a less expensive blend and a 100 percent malbec, but Caro is its No. 1.)

In these wines, malbec, which was brought from France in the mid-1800s, plays the rich, fruity role that merlot does in many Bordeaux wines. There’s also an element of terroir-driven earthiness in the Argentine examples as well; a sort of work boots with designer suit approach. Add the well-known name of a major Bordeaux producer and you are set to sell on the world stage.

“The Cheval Blanc name is a huge endorsement,” said Hervé Birnie-Scott, the technical director of Terrazas de los Andes. So is Rothschild. “People need security when they buy Argentine wine,” he said.

That goes especially for the pricier ones. Most consumers, especially Americans, associate Argentina with inexpensive bottles. As Michael Evans, an owner of Vines of Mendoza, a cooperative, said: “You can make better wine more cheaply in Argentina than anywhere else in the world.”

Though the collaborations between two of the best chateaux in Bordeaux and top Argentine winemakers are not cheap, they are affordable, especially when compared with other famous joint-venture wines, like Opus One from California, founded by Château Mouton-Rothschild and Robert Mondavi, which can easily cost $250 a bottle. Cheval de los Andes runs around $90 in the United States. And Caro sells for about $60.

These wines seem innovative, but like heirloom tomatoes, they are throwbacks. No one associates the malbec grape with Bordeaux today, yet it was once important there. But it was tricky to cultivate: disease prone and sensitive to humidity. It is still the major grape in the Cahors region of southwest France, but in Bordeaux, it was largely abandoned 100 years ago.

One reason appears to be that malbec may not take well to grafting, Nicholas Audebert, the winemaker for Cheval des Andes, said at a recent tasting in New York. But grafting was the only way for vineyards in Europe and elsewhere to replant after the devastating infestation of phylloxera in the late 1800s. “Here in Mendoza, there are desert conditions, so it’s dry and vine diseases are not a problem,” he said. “ We don’t have phylloxera, so grafting isn’t necessary.”

Malbec flourishes in Argentina. “We want to reconnect with malbec in a Bordeaux blend,” Mr. Audebert said, “to use it the way it was in the past.”

—

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven,
that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — President Cristina Fernandez has tried to reinvent her image since her return from skull surgery. She’s put aside the all-black wardrobe she wore for three years mourning her late husband Nestor Kirchner, and reshuffled her Cabinet. This week, her economy minister announced a new stimulus program.

Analysts, however, say what she really needs to do, and quickly, is take politically painful steps to contain inflation by dialing back government spending.

Restoring Argentina’s sense of pride and sovereignty after its 2001 economic collapse has been the central goal of the Kirchners’ ”victorious decade” in the presidency. They renegotiated or paid off nearly all of Argentina’s defaulted debt in ways that removed the supervision of international lending organizations, nationalized the pension system, retook control of the national airline and oil company, and dug deep into the treasury to redirect revenue to the poor.

But the years of 7 percent growth are over. Fernandez now “faces a rapidly deteriorating economy that demands profound and urgent measures, and there are no pleasant alternatives in sight,” said Ignacio Fidanza, who directs lapoliticaonline.com, a website focused on Argentine politics.

Inflation has been at least 26 percent this year, more than twice the widely discredited official rate, private economists say. This forces rounds and rounds of wage and price negotiations that scare off investors and spark social unrest, like the provincial police strikes that set off looting across the country this month.

Governors promised pay raises that reached nearly 60 percent in some provinces to get officers back in the streets after the mob violence killed 13 people.

A 50 percent average raise for police would cost about $2.3 billion in 2014, but the officers represent just 15 percent of Argentina’s 2 million provincial government employees, and with at least 28 percent inflation expected in the coming year, the rest won’t be satisfied with less. If all 2 million get 30 percent raises on average, it would cost the equivalent of $10 billion in today’s pesos, estimates Diego Giacomini, chief economist with the Economia y Regiones consultancy.

Printing more pesos isn’t a sustainable alternative: JP Morgan estimates the peso will be worth 45 percent less by this time next year.

In all, the government had to spend $13 billion this year importing oil and natural gas, costing nearly $48 in hard currency for every $100 that agricultural exports brought into the economy, the Fundacion Mediterranea consultancy says.

“The ceiling that the debt once put on growth is now imposed by the energy deficit,” said Ramiro Castineira, an analyst with the Econometrica firm in Buenos Aires.

The deficit has risen because long-term business investments have slowed even as the government stimulates the economy, subsidizes energy and transportation and expands welfare for the poor.

Meanwhile, Kicillof announced $1.5 billion in government-backed, peso-denominated business loans Monday, part of a $21 billion stimulus aimed at creating 830,000 new jobs in the coming year.

He also negotiated quarterly price controls on at least 175 of the thousands of products sold in supermarkets, but private economists say such measures have already failed to control inflation.

“The issue of inflation is fundamental, because it has wiped out the protection that social plans provided to the poor,” said Jorge Oesterheld, spokesman for the Episcopal Conference of Argentine Catholic church leaders.

BUENOS AIRES—Argentina’s central bank hopes to slow growth of the country’s money supply next year, as it grapples with double-digit inflation that many economists attribute to loose monetary policy and a weakening currency.

“During 2013, [monetary] expansion was on the order of 25%, and we are going to try to get that figure a little lower as a goal for 2014,” said Juan Carlos Fábrega, president of the central bank, in an interview Tuesday with Radio del Plata.

Monetary expansion has slowed in 2013, with one closely followed measure of the money supply up 27% on the year in the 12-months ending November 30, versus 38% growth in the like period of 2012, according to central bank data.

The central bank’s persistent money printing has helped fuel the second-highest rate of inflation in the Americas, after Venezuela. And Mr. Fábrega skirted a question about the central bank’s 2014 inflation forecast, saying only that the bank and government work together to address issues like consumer prices.

Most economists say Argentina’s actual annual inflation is running this year at faster than 25%, more than double the 10.5% the government reports. For years, unions, businesses and the public have used private inflation forecasts instead of official numbers that are so suspect, the International Monetary Fund threatened to sanction Argentina earlier this year unless it improves the quality of its economic data.

While the country’s money supply may be growing at a slower pace, the government’s decision to speed the depreciation of the Argentine peso in recent months to help exporters has aggravated inflation by making imported goods more costly. And a widening fiscal deficit could frustrate Mr. Fábrega’s plans because of the central bank’s role as a lender of last resort to the federal government.

President Cristina Kirchner named Mr. Fábrega to lead the central bank last month as part of a broad cabinet purge after her ruling coalition suffered a steep drop in voter support in October mid-term congressional elections. Mr. Fábrega formerly ran the country’s largest bank, state-owned Banco de la Nacion, where he started as an entry-level employee more than 40 years ago.

Argentina’s central bank takes its marching orders from Mrs. Kirchner, who effectively has turned the bank into a financing arm of the Treasury since she first took office in 2007. Unable to tap international bond markets due to litigation with creditors, Mrs. Kirchner regularly borrows foreign currency and pesos from the central bank to pay bondholders and finance her government.

For more than two years, the government has strictly limited the foreign currencies Argentines can buy to prevent a run on the central bank’s foreign reserves by inflation-weary people and businesses.

The currency controls have created a black market for dollars and have failed to prevent almost $13 billion from leaving the central bank’s coffers so far this year. Argentina relies on its foreign currency reserves to pay creditors and buy imports ranging from toys to natural gas.

In recent weeks, the authorities have managed to stabilize reserves at about $30.7 billion due to dollar inflows from foreign investment in the oil sector and farm exports, such as soybeans.

And a new short-term note issued by the central bank, with a payout linked to the exchange rate, has enticed some agricultural exporters to sell their holdings instead of sitting on them, in hopes of reaping a more favorable exchange rate in coming months, Mr. Fábrega said.

It remains to be seen if the recent recovery in currency reserves marks a change in tendency or just a fleeting victory followed by further declines. But Mr. Fábrega said in his radio interview Tuesday that he hopes to continue rebuilding central bank reserves, while narrowing the gap between the official exchange rate and the black market.

The peso closed at about 6.44 to the dollar on the regulated wholesale currency market Monday, compared with about 9.65 on the black market. The gap between the two rates now stands at about 50%, down from almost 100% in May, when restrictions on foreign travel sharply reduced the supply of dollars on the black market.

The wider that gap, the more incentive Argentines and foreign tourists have to exchange dollars outside regulated venues, such as banks and exchange houses. Likewise, foreign investors think twice about bringing dollars into Argentina when those dollars are turned into pesos at the official exchange rate, but local costs are influenced by galloping inflation and the black market rate.

“It’s good the breach has been reduced,” Mr. Fábrega he told the radio.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) – President Cristina Fernandez has tried to reinvent her image since her return from skull surgery. She’s put aside the all-black wardrobe she wore for three years mourning her late husband Nestor Kirchner, and reshuffled her Cabinet. This week, her economy minister announced a new stimulus program.

Analysts, however, say what she really needs to do, and quickly, is take politically painful steps to contain inflation by dialing back government spending.

Restoring Argentina’s sense of pride and sovereignty after its 2001 economic collapse has been the central goal of the Kirchners’ “victorious decade” in the presidency. They renegotiated or paid off nearly all of Argentina’s defaulted debt in ways that removed the supervision of international lending organizations, nationalized the pension system, retook control of the national airline and oil company, and dug deep into the treasury to redirect revenue to the poor.

But the years of 7 percent growth are over. Fernandez now “faces a rapidly deteriorating economy that demands profound and urgent measures, and there are no pleasant alternatives in sight,” said Ignacio Fidanza, who directs lapoliticaonline.com, a website focused on Argentine politics.

Inflation has been at least 26 percent this year, more than twice the widely discredited official rate, private economists say. This forces rounds and rounds of wage and price negotiations that scare off investors and spark social unrest, like the provincial police strikes that set off looting across the country this month.

Governors promised pay raises that reached nearly 60 percent in some provinces to get officers back in the streets after the mob violence killed 13 people.

A 50 percent average raise for police would cost about $2.3 billion in 2014, but the officers represent just 15 percent of Argentina’s 2 million provincial government employees, and with at least 28 percent inflation expected in the coming year, the rest won’t be satisfied with less. If all 2 million get 30 percent raises on average, it would cost the equivalent of $10 billion in today’s pesos, estimates Diego Giacomini, chief economist with the Economia y Regiones consultancy.

Printing more pesos isn’t a sustainable alternative: JP Morgan estimates the peso will be worth 45 percent less by this time next year.

In all, the government had to spend $13 billion this year importing oil and natural gas, costing nearly $48 in hard currency for every $100 that agricultural exports brought into the economy, the Fundacion Mediterranea consultancy says.

“The ceiling that the debt once put on growth is now imposed by the energy deficit,” said Ramiro Castineira, an analyst with the Econometrica firm in Buenos Aires.

The deficit has risen because long-term business investments have slowed even as the government stimulates the economy, subsidizes energy and transportation and expands welfare for the poor.

Meanwhile, Kicillof announced $1.5 billion in government-backed, peso-denominated business loans Monday, part of a $21 billion stimulus aimed at creating 830,000 new jobs in the coming year.

He also negotiated quarterly price controls on at least 175 of the thousands of products sold in supermarkets, but private economists say such measures have already failed to control inflation.

“The issue of inflation is fundamental, because it has wiped out the protection that social plans provided to the poor,” said Jorge Oesterheld, spokesman for the Episcopal Conference of Argentine Catholic church leaders.

4. ARGENTINES IN SPACE (Investor’s Business Daily)

26 December 2013

Geopolitics: It’s always questionable when a nation that can’t keep its lights on goes on a military spending spree. So now Argentina has just launched a new space rocket to “recover” its defense capacity. This won’t end well.

Last Friday, Argentina’s air force launched a research rocket connected to its space program that its defense minister called “a milestone,” according to a report in Mercopress.

What’s really going on, though, was spilled by Argentina’s defense minister, Agustin Rossi, who called it a “step toward the recovery of scientific-technological capabilities for defense” and hailed it as “of the utmost importance.” If it isn’t clear, Argentina began the launch on the 20th anniversary that its last missile program was scrapped, following Argentina’s Falklands defeat.

But the same week Argentina launched its nifty new rocket, the power grid blew out in Buenos Aires due to its creaky infrastructure and an overbearing government hand in the electrical industry.

Although the crash was blamed on a heat wave (it’s summer down there), it represents just the tip of Argentina’s iceberg of fiscal problems. Making a priority of its rocket program seems strange indeed.

The Argentinian government is extremely unpopular these days. The electrical blackout, for one, triggered pot-banging protests as thousands of Argentines sweated in the dark.

The socialist-Peronist government has blown out its budget, watched as price inflation rocketed 26% in December from a year earlier, gotten scolded by the IMF for lying about its inflation data and tightened its grip on the media.

It all just underlines how suspect its missile launches are. Argentina — which still hasn’t sorted out its $100 billion sovereign default with all its creditors dating back to 2001 — has absolutely no money to be shoveling out on space programs. It’s doing it anyway.

The rocket launch is part of a broader ramp-up of military spending, which goes to $6.1 billion in 2014.

Argentina’s defense spending has risen 132% since 2003, according to the Swedish defense think tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, while Jane’s reports that that latest defense budget represents a 33.4% increase over 2012.

With no malevolent neighbors, the only purpose of this space jaunt can be to raise pressure on Britain over the Falklands and whip up the shirtless ones to cheer it. We all know how well that turned out for them in 1982.

The Argentine Senate promoted Maj. Gen. César Milani, the commander in chief of the Armed Forces, to lieutenant general on December 18, 2013, despite allegations by victims and human rights groups that he had participated in serious human rights abuses during the military dictatorship, from 1976 to 1983.

The credible allegations of abuses implicating Milani cast a serious doubt on his ability to head the Armed Forces of Argentina, Human Rights Watch said. Instead of promoting Milani under these circumstances, the government should undertake thorough and impartial investigations into the alleged crimes and bring those responsible to justice.

According to court documents, Milani drafted a report on the “desertion” of a soldier in Tucumán province in 1976. The soldier was later forcibly disappeared. A provincial human rights commission report stated that the military routinely reported that “disappeared” soldiers had “deserted.” The commission report also includes the testimony of a man who accused Milani of participating in the search of his home in La Rioja province that led to the arrest and detention of his father, who was subsequently tortured.

Milani told the Center for Legal and Social Studies, a local human rights group, that he was unaware that a clandestine detention center existed in the military unit in which he worked at the time, even though several court cases established the existence of the detention center.

Milani admitted that he participated in transferring detainees from a “prison” to judicial authorities but said that he merely accompanied the police officers who were in charge of the transfer and were in direct contact with the detainees. However, existing evidence suggests that political detainees were held in the “prison” he mentioned, and it is widely known that the police officers at the time were generally subordinate to the military.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — An attack by a school of carnivorous fish has injured 70 people bathing in an Argentine river, including seven children who lost parts of their fingers or toes.

Director of lifeguards Federico Cornier said Thursday that thousands of bathers were cooling off from 100-degree temperatures in the Parana River in Rosario on Wednesday when bathers suddenly began complaining of bite marks on their hands and feet. He blamed the attack on palometas, “a type of piranha, big, voracious and with sharp teeth that can really bite.”

Paramedic Alberto Manino said some children he treated lost entire digits. He told the Todo Noticias channel that city beaches were closed, but it was so hot that within a half-hour, many people went back to the water,

2. 70 PEOPLE INJURED IN ARGENTINE FISH ATTACK (CNN)

By Elwyn Lopez and Dana Ford

December 26, 2013

(CNN) — Their Christmas Day did not go as planned.

About 70 people were injured Wednesday when a swarm of carnivorous fish attacked at a beach near the city of Rosario, on the Parana River, Argentina’s state-run Telam news agency reported.

It described the fish as a relative of the piranha.

No one was killed.

But swimmers suffered various injuries, including a 7-year-old girl who lost a part of one of her pinky fingers, Telam said.

Ricardo Biasatti, sub secretary of Natural Resources for the province of Santa Fe, described the incident to the agency as “isolated and insignificant,” when the size of the river is taken into consideration.

Julian Aguilar, president of a local fisherman’s group, also downplayed it, saying the likelihood of such an event happening again was low, as attacks by this type of fish on humans are “occasional.”

The area is a popular swimming spot this time of year in Argentina, where it is summer.

(Reuters) – A swarm of biting fish injured more than 70 people who were bathing at a popular beach in Argentina on Christmas, a medical official said on Thursday.

A seven-year-old girl had her finger partially amputated and dozens more suffered bite wounds on their extremities from the fish, a relative of the piranha called “palometas,” said Federico Cornier, the director of emergency services in the city of Rosario.

“This is not normal,” Cornier said on television. “It’s normal for there to be an isolated bite or injury, but the magnitude in this case was great … this is an exceptional event.”

The attack happened off the popular beaches of the Parana River near Rosario, 300 kilometers (186 miles) north of Buenos Aires, where many Argentines were seeking relief from a heat wave over the holiday.

============================

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.